I would like to give expression to my gratitude for the blessings which have come to me through Christian Science. During a period of thirty years, possibly more, I suffered with severe and painful cramps in the legs, which in the course of years so increased in severity as to become almost unbearable. My friends to whom I complained about my ailments would mention all kinds of remedies, and outdo themselves in this respect; but it was all to no avail. I must state here that I was averse to medical treatment, and my late father having suffered with the same trouble, I thought that I must consider it to be inherited and submit to what I believed to be my fate, especially since the physicians all told me that if I had tried all the remedies mentioned, there was nothing more that could be done for me.
In 1897 a painful stomach trouble was added, which manifested itself in such a severe form that I would go from one fainting spell into another. This trouble I tried to cure by using household remedies, but in vain. It grew more severe with every day, and the breakdown of my constitution was so noticeable that my friends remarked upon it and said that I must consult a physician if I expected to get well at all. At the urgent entreaty of my wife I went to a physician of excellent repute. He gave me a thorough examination and informed me that the trouble was most serious, and that a start should be made at once toward a radical cure. If I had waited a week or two longer, he added, no physician would have been able to do anything for me. A well-known cure was resorted to at once, the result being that I felt an improvement after a few days and the trouble gradually disappeared. After I was through with the course of treatment and the convalescent regime, I felt quite well, but the improvement was not of lasting nature, for in less than a year the old trouble set in again. I consulted the same physician and had to go through another course of treatment and dieting, by which I was benefited, though I was not relieved this time of the pain in the stomach.
Upon hearing of a certain watering-place I resorted to it and went through the cure, whereupon the pain subsided for a while, yet healing seemed out of the question. I then went to a doctor in Berlin whose treatment seemed satisfactory at first, but I had only stopped taking his medicine for about a week, when the pain in the stomach returned. I was on the verge of despair, and had lost the desire to live, when I heard through a relative of Christian Science and of the truly marvelous healing which was performed through a correct apprehension of the truth. It was advised that we attend the meetings and services. My first thought was that what is known as faith-cure was involved, and I therefore assumed a rather skeptical attitude; but when a man has gone through what I had he is likely to resort to almost anything, and so we decided to attend these meetings. I must say that the whole thing did not impress me as being very clear, and it failed to satisfy me. Then I thought that I probably lacked the necessary understanding which one would have to grow into, and this was true. We attended the services regularly, and it gradually became clear ' to me that the recognition of God as divine Truth heals the sick and reforms the sinner; it was even as the Master said: "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free."
